“She helped,” I repeat.
Yujun’s dimple pops out. He’s delighted I’m getting along with Mrs. Ji. “Can I do anything?”
“Go change. We’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
“Yes, Captain.” He gives me a smart salute and then escapes before the dish towel I throw in his direction lands.
By the time dinner is completely ready, Wansu is at the table wearing a soft blue silk pant set while Yujun is in jeans and a long-sleeve faded green cashmere sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.
The individual stone bowls are so hot that the soup is still bubbling when we set them on the table.
Yujun rubs his hands together in anticipation. “Smells delicious. Masitgyeda.”
The banchan is a mix of my jeon and seasoned soybeans and scallions and Mrs. Ji’s gamja jorin, baby potatoes she roasted first and then braised with soy sauce, rice wine, and brown sugar. The soup is the main course along with marinated and grilled galbi.
Wansu’s approach is more measured, maybe even hesitant, as if she can’t quite shake off the bad memory of the other night when I nearly killed her with the gochujang I’d added to the stew. I pretend not to care, but I will be crushed if she doesn’t like it.
“It’s good, Samo-nim. I tasted it myself,” Mrs. Ji encourages Wansu, using the term “lady of the house,” as Mrs. Ji always does.
I almost want to cry at this visible sign of support. Yujun gives Mrs. Ji a thumbs-up on my behalf before she retires to the kitchen.
“I am sure it is delicious. I was waiting for the soup to cool down.” Wansu dips her spoon into the bowl and takes a small taste. When the spice doesn’t blow the back of her head off, she takes a large one and then another. Her stern mouth lifts slightly and she gives me a gentle nod of approval. “Very good. The flavors are very good . . . very Korean.”
If I have stars in my eyes, everyone look away. “Thank you.”
Yujun is beaming; both dimples are showing. This time when the table falls silent and the sounds are only brass spoons against fired clay, I don’t feel any discomfort. It’s a companionable silence and it doesn’t last long. Soon, Yujun is talking about the pool party, sharing a funny story about how Sangki almost fell into the water trying to avoid a flamingo floatie and that I saved him by grabbing his shirt, only for it to rip. Wansu smiles, which is the equivalent of a laugh from her, and even though I spend the night alone, I go to sleep happy. Yujun is only down the hall. Wansu lost the tightness around her mouth that seemed like it would be permanent. There’s only one small pebble in my happiness shoe, and that’s the situation between Bomi and Jules. That will work itself out. I fall asleep dreaming up new things to make. Maybe an apple pie. I’m really good at apple pies.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Wear sneakers, Yujun texts me on Friday.
ME: This sounds athletic. You know I’m no good at those things.
YUJUN: You’ve said so but I have not seen any evidence
ME: Is this a test
YUJUN: It will be fun
Anything with Yujun is fun. Jumping out of a plane would be fun with him, and I’m scared of heights.
Yujun’s surprise date is at a virtual reality arcade. There are private rooms for group activities but we stick to the main space, filled with rows of simulated racing machines and experience pods. A staff person straps me to a waist-high railing shaped in a half circle and Yujun helps me don a pair of goggles and special gloves. Because of my fear of heights, I opt to swim on the ocean floor. Yujun skydives. He tries to get me to jump with him but the VR is too real and I refuse to do anything more adventurous than a hot-air balloon. Even that has me clinging to him. He laughs in my ear, the small puffs of air reassuring me that I won’t fall, that he’s holding me.
“How long will you be like this?” he teases. “We will not be able to ride on the Namsan cable car.”
“Has this been a goal of yours?” I stare up at the fake fire powering the fake balloon instead of the fake ground that looks a thousand miles below my feet.
“That cable car has never failed.”
“There’s always a first time.”
He laughs again and hugs me. “Then we fall together.”
“You’d be right about that. I have no plans on going up in that tin can with anyone else.”
“There’s also a few paragliding places.” There’s a big smile on his face and his left dimple is so deep that I could fall into it and never come out.
“I will watch you from the ground and take a thousand pictures. You’re welcome.”
His chest shakes with his happiness. I lean in, resting my cheek against that solid surface. Hearing him laugh, feeling his warmth, I can almost make myself believe that this will all work out. Yujun takes one more solo flight trip while I eat a snack and watch him sway on his platform. He should look foolish with his arms outstretched, leaning left and right as he simulates flight motions, but he is one of those people who can get away with doing anything. It might be because his frame is lean and long and he has a certain elegance in movement. It could be my love-tainted vision. Possibly both.
His face is all smiles, dimpled cheeks, and bright eyes when he’s finished. “Hungry?” he asks after we return the equipment.
“Yes.” I wasn’t really, but a meal means more time with him and I will never turn that down.
“Should we take the metro? I know you love it.”
I do. It makes me feel like a Seoulite, navigating the subway system, eating food from the vendors in the underground, buying twenty-thousand-won shoes and one-thousand-won socks. These are things ordinary people in Seoul do, and there’s nothing more that I long for than to feel ordinary here in this big city that gave birth to me.
Yujun holds my hand and sneaks a quick kiss. Hand-holding and matching outfits and couple rings are common, but a kiss in a public place is not. I guess it’s the one out-of-the-ordinary thing I enjoy. We take the 6 train and get off at the World Cup Stadium Station exit. It takes about thirty minutes to get to Nanji Hangang Park but it’s a nice night, and I am, as Yujun requested, wearing tennis shoes.
“This used to be a garbage fill, but it was rebuilt. There’s a camping site and a marina. You can set up your own tent or rent one,” he explains as we cross over the bridge and approach the park. The Nanji Hangang Park is more like a campground. The ground is packed hard and covered mostly in dirt, with only a few green areas carefully tended in between the sandy roads. Yujun points out a graffitied concrete skate bowl and a field of huge reeds to the east. Below us the tent city dots a grassy expanse that is separated from the riverbank by a wide paved boulevard. The tents are mostly small ones—the kind that you have to crawl to get inside, and as I watch, some of them are moving in a recognizable rhythm.